SIX MONTHS m MEXICO. 59 



and forty ounces of gold, in one sepulchre, 

 which was in the tower of a temple. The 

 anonymous conqueror says also, that he was 

 present at the digging up of another se- 

 pulchre, from which they took about three 



thousand castettanos" 



* # # * 



" The Mexican empire abounded with all 

 those kinds of paintings; for their painters 

 were innumerable, and there was hardly any 

 thing left unpainted. If those had been 

 preserved, there would have been nothing 

 wanting to the history of Mexico; but the 

 first preachers of the gospel, suspicious that 

 superstition was mixed with all their paint- 

 ings, made a furious destruction of them. 

 Of all those which were to be found in Tez- 

 cuco, where the chief school of painting was, 

 they collected such a mass, in the square of 

 the market, it appeared like a little mountain ; 

 to this they set fire, and buried in the ashes 



